1. Field of the Invention
The invention provides a ratcheting action wrench for driving fasteners having an opening in a housing through which a shank projects with gear teeth formed in the housing. Two embodiments are taught, each having advantages. The preferred embodiment has a plurality of internal ring gear teeth, while an alternative embodiment has crown type teeth on a shelf surrounding the shank opening. In the two embodiments, a driven geared drum, or gear with corresponding teeth to the housing gear selectively engages and disengages as the housing is turned. The engagement of the driven gear and drive gear is accomplished through a biasing assembly using a cam wheel aligning internally carried ball bearings retracting and extending from recesses. In the preferred embodiment, the geared drum normally has the respective gears engaged, while in the crown gear arrangement, the normal position has the gears disengaged. The use of rotation around an axis to actuate the camming balls to bias an assembly by moving the assembly in an axial rather than rotary direction is common in both embodiments.
2. Description of Related Art
Ratchet wrenches using gears shaped like spur gears, with straight teeth parallel to the axis of rotation, engaged by pawls, are well known. Arranging a plurality of pawls and providing them with a reversible configuration enables reversing of the prior art ratchet wrench. The mechanism in this prior art is a commonly referred to as a ratchet while in this application the different structures' function is referred to as a ratchet action because it uses a different mechanism.
The prior art shows the general concept of using ball bearings as camming elements in the wrench field. Typically these applications are to retain a removable wrench socket on a square drive using a spring loaded retainer ball or a positively positioned retainer ball which may be locked in place. When ball bearings are used as camming elements typically the ball bearings in these structures operate on fairly infrequent duty cycles as opposed to repetitive cycles in a ratchet or a ratchet action mechanism.